Watersports involving powered watercraft have enjoyed a long history. Waterskiing's decades-long popularity spawned the creation of specialized watercraft designed specifically for the sport. Such “skiboats” are optimized to produce very small wakes in the water behind the watercraft's hull, thereby providing the smoothest possible water to the trailing water skier.
More recently, watersports have arisen which actually take advantage of, and benefit from, the wake produced by a watercraft. Wakesurfing, wakeboarding, wakeskating, and kneeboarding all use the watercraft's wake to allow the participants to perform various maneuvers or “tricks” including becoming airborne.
As with waterskiing “skiboats”, specialized watercraft known as “wakeboats” have been developed for the wakesurfing, wakeboarding, wakeskating, and/or kneeboarding sports. Contrary to skiboats, however, wakeboats seek to enhance (rather than diminish) the wake produced by the hull using a variety of techniques.
To enhance the wake produced by the hull, water can be pumped aboard from the surrounding water to ballast the wakeboat. Unfortunately, existing art in this area is fraught with time limitations, compromises, challenges, and in some cases outright dangers to the safe operation of the wakeboat.